Melbourne Millennials make $2m from Bubble Tea Club business offering DIY kits

When they lost their jobs, Pam and Jenny got together with friends and family to work on a simple product idea that took off within days.

Melbourne Millennials Pam Yip and Jenny Le turned the bitter tea of losing their income during the Covid-19 pandemic into a $2 million dollar company in just a year.

Ms Le, 26, was stood down from her job as an optometrist in the first wave of the pandemic, while Ms Yip, 28, lost the hospitality clients that used her marketing agency.

Both loved the Taiwanese drink called bubble tea, having grown up with it, and had noticed stores popping up around Australia over the years.

But during lockdown Ms Le discovered it wasn’t cheap to satisfy a craving for bubble tea.

“Bubble tea drinkers are fanatical – some were paying astronomical prices to have them delivered during lockdown – upwards of $15 for one drink,” she said.

“I thought imagine if you could make bubble tea at home without breaking the bank.”

“Coffee lovers would be rioting if they always had to pay a barista to make it for them,” added Ms Yip.

The was the start of a lucrative business idea – DIY bubble tea kits.

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The kits are popular among people who have never tried the drink before. Picture: Supplied

Ms Le, 26, and Ms Yip, 28, were joined by three other co-founders, which includes 16-year-old Tim Huang, Ms Le’s brother-in-law.

Pam got the gang together at her house with ingredients for the kit and shot the content in her living room, even though the group hadn’t figured out how to package things. Four days later, they launched their business Bubble Tea Club

“As soon as we uploaded the kits and a DIY video on social media – likes, comments, shares and sales went viral from day one,” said Ms Yip. “People had never seen bubble tea made at home and the video went crazy.”

The kits come with the option of choosing a fruit tea or milk tea base, with a pack of five costing $19.95 plus delivery, while a pack of 40 comes in at $99.95.

“With Bubble Tea Club, you can make your own bubble tea starting at $1.75 per serve, which is much cheaper than the usual $7 to $9 for a shop bought version, plus the extra $5 being charged for delivery,” Ms Yip said.

For those who prefer their bubble tea without pearls, a five pack works out to 12 serves, with a $1.75 cost for each. For a milk tea with tapioca pearls, it costs around $2.25 per serve.

People can add a range of toppings to their order, including a container of tapioca pearl balls or coconut jelly lychee, which retail for $9.95.

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The business is planning to crowdfund to expand. Picture: Supplied

Die hard bubble tea addicts

The range allows 550 different combinations of tea to be made, with customers able to fully customise their drink of choice.

There are a range of recipes on their website as well including one for a lamington boba tea, but their bestseller last year was the brown sugar milk tea recipe, which includes eight steps and 20 minutes cooking time for the tapioca pearls, according to the instructions online.

Ms Yip, who’s favourite drink is the grapefruit tea, said customers aren’t confined to the Asian community either, with more than half of their customers from non-Asian backgrounds, while 10 per cent have never drunk bubble tea before stumbling on their business.

Some have never returned to a bubble tea shop either after discovering their DIY kits, she revealed.

“Die hard bubble tea addicts continually tell us our flavours are superior to those you buy in store, which can also be custom made to your own specifications – with thousands of combinations of flavours, as well as limited edition flavours, and you can adjust the sweetness and strength levels as you like – the possibilities are endless,” she added.

Bubble Tea Clubs DIY kit which sells for $19.95. Picture: Supplied

The DIY kits range in price depending on the servings you get. Picture: Supplied

Missteps and feedback

Customer feedback has been key to their journey as well, with a Facebook group of 4000 that they often reach out to for advice.

“We have built an amazing community online, who post their own creations on the Facebook page and share their own recipes,” explained Ms Yip.

“Lots of people are making it for their friends and family and one of the major reasons why our community is so invested is we allow them to contribute to the business and make changes for them,” added Ms Le, who’s current drink of choice is the taro milk tea.

Initially they had paper stickers, but were told they were getting wet when pouring out the syrup so they changed to a matte product.

“One of things we had go wrong was our jars. We wanted to make it look very premium and we got glass jars but they were breaking in the mail so we had to move to plastic jars,” she revealed.

“We wanted to be a little more environmentally friendly, so one of our customers mentioned he had used so many plastic straws, so we ended up changing to paper straws.”

Bubble Tea Club also sells reusable cups, which have sold out three times over, according to the ladies.

The founding members of the Bubble Tea Club. Picture: Supplied

Teenage influence

As for their teenage co-founder, he plays a huge role to looking after the company’s tech platform and supplier relationships in Taiwan.

“Tim is a superstar, he is very switched on boy and interested in learning new things. He didn’t know anything about coding, but he learned it on the spot and created our website on the spot,” explained Ms Le.

“He was helping out with customer service initially and everyone was responding to Tim – little did they know he was 15 when he first started and still in school.”

Now the group has their eyes set on launching into the US, UK and Canada.

“Bubble tea is taking the world by storm,” noted Ms Le. “When I was young, there was one store in (Melbourne’s) Footscray and now every single street has a bubble tea store.”

Originally published as Melbourne Millennials make $2m from Bubble Tea Club business offering DIY kits